A year ago, the OECD warned about how trade and policy uncertainties could significantly damage the world economy and further contribute to the growing divide between people. A year later, global momentum has weakened markedly and growth is set to remain subpar as trade tensions persist. Trade and investment have slowed sharply, especially in Europe and Asia. Business and consumer confidence have faltered, with manufacturing production contracting. In response, financial conditions have eased as central banks have moved towards more accommodative monetary stances, while fiscal policy has been providing stimulus in a handful of countries. At the same time, low unemployment and a slight pick‑up in wages in the major economies continue to support household incomes and consumption. Overall, however, trade tensions are taking a toll and global growth is projected to slow to only 3.2% this year before edging up to 3.4% in 2020, well below the growth rates seen over the past three decades, or even in 2017-18.

Global growth has slowed abruptly over the past year, with the weakness seen in the latter half of 2018 continuing in the early part of 2019 amidst persisting trade tensions. Trade and investment have moderated sharply, especially in Europe and China, business and consumer confidence have declined and policy uncertainty remains high. At the same time, financial market conditions have eased, helped by moves towards a more accommodative monetary policy stance in many economies, and favourable labour market conditions continue to support household incomes and spending in the major economies. Sizeable fiscal and quasi-fiscal easing is occurring in a handful of countries, including China, but in most economies fiscal policy is offering only limited support for growth. Overall, given the balance of these different forces acting, global GDP growth is projected to ease from 3½ per cent in 2018 to a sub-par rate of 3.2% this year, before edging up to 3.4% in 2020 (). This slowdown is widespread, with growth set to moderate this year in almost all economies. Trade growth is projected to weaken further this year, to around 2%, the weakest rate since the global financial crisis and checking the speed at which global output growth can rebound from its current soft pace. Inflationary pressures are set to remain mild, with few strains on capacity in most economies.

Digital technologies are transforming our lives and our economies. They change the way firms produce goods and services, innovate, and interact with other firms, workers, consumers and governments. These technologies seem to offer a vast potential to enhance firm productivity and ultimately living standards. For example, cloud computing gives firms access to flexible data storage and processing capacities, online platforms can make their interactions with consumers more fluid, and artificial intelligence enables them to automate increasingly complex tasks (OECD, 2019a).

This annex contains data on key economic series which provide a background to the recent economic developments in the global economy described in the main body of the OECD Economic Outlook. Data for 2019 and 2020 are OECD estimates and projections. Data in some of the tables have been adjusted to conform to internationally agreed concepts and definitions in order to make them more comparable cross countries, as well as consistent with historical data shown in other OECD publications. Regional aggregates are based on time-varying weights. For details on aggregation, see OECD Economic Outlook Sources and Methods.